Antarctic Sea Ice at Record High, but Global-warming Doomsayers Unimpressed

A report posted by the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) on October 7 stated: “Sea ice in Antarctica has remained at satellite-era record high daily levels for most of 2014."

The report noted that during the period between September 10 and September 22 very rapid late-season ice growth in Antarctica pushed the total sea ice extent upward by nearly 23,000 square miles per day. This was the first time since 1979 that Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 20 million square kilometers (7.7 million square miles).

As to what this means, Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the NSIDC stated: “What we’re learning is, we have more to learn.”

NSIDC researchers have not immediately assumed that the increase in Antarctic ice is an indication that popular “global warming” theories are incorrect, however. They, instead, offer other explanations, such as “wind patterns” and that “recent ice sheet melt, caused by warmer, deep ocean water reaching the coastline and melting deeper ice, is making the surface water slightly less dense. While the change in saltiness is too small to significantly affect the freezing temperature, the increase in slightly less dense water surrounding Antarctica inhibits mixing, creating conditions that favor ice growth.”

In other words, this explanation goes, melting ice creates “slightly” less dense water, which, in turn, has been responsible for a significant growth of ice that has been going on for 35 years! The trend has accelerated recently. As an October 7 NASA report puts it: “So in just 13 days, 299,000 square miles of open ocean became covered in floating ice — an area larger than Texas!” That seems like a lot of ice caused by “slightly” less dense water.

An article about these latest findings in the U.K.-based The Register noted that the increase in Antarctic ice has created confusion in the minds of many scientists, who find it difficult to reconcile with their preconceived views on “global warming.” The report stated:

Climate scientists have been puzzled by the behaviour of the southern ice for many years now. The most commonly used models say that its steady growth should not be happening in a warming world (though the warming of the world is also in doubt, as air temperatures have been steady for the last fifteen years or more — and it turns out that deep ocean temperatures are not increasing either, leaving the “mystery” of the apparent end of global warming “unsolved.”

The above article linked to another posted on NASA’s website, “NASA Study Finds Earth’s Ocean Abyss Has Not Warmed,” that reported: “The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years.” The NASA article noted:

In the 21st century, greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, just as they did in the 20th century, but global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising in tandem with the gases. The temperature of the top half of the world's oceans — above the 1.24-mile mark — is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures.

The headline of an article posted at AOL.com on October 8 highlighted the lengths to which advocates of the global-warming theory will go to make their point: “Antarctic sea ice hits an all-time high, NASA blames global warming.”

The article quoted Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who said: “The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent.”

In other words, sea ice is decreasing, except where it is increasing!

After exploring several explanations for the increase in Antarctic ice, including the geographic differences between the Arctic and Antarctic (the Arctic is surrounded by land masses; the Antarctic is not), the aforementioned wind patterns, and snow falling onto thin, barely noticeable ice — finally, admits the reporter:

But these are all just theories. No one knows for sure what is causing the Antarctic ice sheet to expand so rapidly.

“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus,” said Parkinson. The Antarctic sea ice is one of those areas where things have not gone entirely as expected.

“So it’s natural for scientists to ask, ‘OK, this isn’t what we expected, now how can we explain it?’ ”

The obvious problem is that the scientists being quoted by NASA and much of the media have had unreasonable expectations. Starting with a preconceived premise that global warming is a reality, they have ruled out conclusions that do not fit their premise. However, other scientists have different perspectives on climate change.

No one can deny that our climate is changing, because our climate has always changed. Nature is always cyclic. However, most climate-change alarmists foster the unproven theory that climate change is anthropogenic — or caused by human activity. They also charge that global warming (if it exists at all) is detrimental to mankind.

Several respected scientists have written books and research papers debunking the claim that climate change is anthropogenic, unusual, or harmful.

The University of Houston’s Larry Bell, an professor of space architecture who wrote Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind The Global Warming Hoax, was quoted by UH’s Daily Cougar newspaper in 2011 as saying, “The notion of carbon dioxide being a pollutant is silly because carbon dioxide is what makes plants grow."

“A misrepresentation is that global warming is bad; that it’s a crisis. No. There is no scientific evidence that we’re in a crisis,” Bell said. “These warming periods happen with the irregularity of [an] electrocardiogram for lots of reasons.”

Recent research goes beyond arguments about whether global warming is beneficial or harmful because it indicates that the process may already have reversed itself. Steven Goddard, an independent analyst at Real Science (who served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center before joining the faculty at the University of Alabama in Huntsville) has noted: “NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] made a big deal about 2012 blowing away all temperature records, but the temperature they reported is the result of a huge error. This affects all NOAA and NASA U.S. temperature graphs, and is part of the cause of this famous shift.”

The more Americans research “climate change,” the less they believe the government agencies’ assertions that catastrophic human-caused climate change is a fact. And even when the evidence suggests that cyclical climate warming has reversed itself, they refuse to accept that evidence.

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